War is a Lady's Game
by LadyBretttAshley
Summary: The whole world paused when Hermione walked into the Great Hall on the night of the Yule Ball. She had an uncommon air of confidence, her eyes shone with esoteric knowledge. She was a different girl — quite literally. Time travel fic; dark!Hermione; Dramione; currently editing
1. Chapter 1:The Future's Not Pretty

The whole world paused when Hermione walked down the stairwell in front of the Great Hall on the night of the Yule Ball. She had an uncommon air of confidence, her eyes shone with esoteric knowledge. She was a different girl — quite literally.

A/N: This story is quite a bit AU! It picks up years after DH in an unsavory future where the Order lost the Final Battle. It starts off showing an angry Hermione right before she travels back in time with a group of unexpected companions to change the future. The story will not steer away from dark topics or issues of power and the stupidity of youth. For the moment it'll be rated T but could change to M in later chapters — we'll see when that time comes.

This chapter should clarify where the story is starting off at — but please let me know if it's unclear!

* * *

Chapter 1: The Future's Not Pretty, Let's Leave

* * *

"Remus," the determined witch pleaded, "You must let us go."

Standing up from her chair, she leaned over his dark wood desk nestled in the corner room of the Grimauld Place hallway. With a growing sense of urgency, she muttered, "We're your last chance."

Sitting back in his chair, the aging werewolf lifted a hand to his now-sparse blond hair, as if to find comfort in combing it into place. He sighed, with an exhaustion built out of years of fighting to merely stay alive, and responded to the woman,

"The Order simply cannot gamble on losing the four of you. You're special. Talented. The best we have, really."

"What better reason to use us! You said it yourself: We're the best."

"And it's for that very reason I — err, the Order — cannot take such a risk."

"It's a _calculated_ risk."

"Fine, fine. But even if you had thought out every detail, there are other..." he paused, taking a moment to consider a delicate phrasing, " _concerns_ I have."

" _Concerns?"_ She laughed, losing her composure "Like what? Losing the last member of your patchwork family — the make-believe teenage daughter you played house with before the Resistance assembled?"

She took a pause as he flinched. She knew how much she knew he was hurting him, but pushed on nonetheless.

"We both know I'm not her anymore, Remus."

"I do know, and that is precisely why I cannot send you off to another time!"

"Admit it." She stood up taller, "I'm greater than you could ever imagine, and it scares you."

The professor took a deep breath and searched her eyes for a glimpse of the girl he once knew like family. After the First Battle, most of the Light had lost hope. Even the most active and enthusiastic members of the Order were scattered and disheartened. At the end of the battle, the Dark rounded up almost anyone they had yet to kill, including Ron Weasley who had yet to be found. Hermione and Remus ran into each other three weeks later, both hiding in the underbelly of wizarding London, both seeking refuge as scourges of the newly implemented government.

The two together reasoned that, although the death of Dumbledore made everyone else aware of the location of 12 Grimmauld Place a secret keeper, they were likely the only two members of the Order of the Phoenix remaining able to access the ancestral home. Although there was a chance a captured member gave away the location of the meeting place, they reckoned they could easily enough reclaim the place and resecure the wards. Surely enough, the two found Grimmauld Place nearly untouched, confirmation in their minds that they were two of the only remaining members of the previously sizable group. Remus became a fatherly figure to the broken-hearted Hermione, who had lost not only her best friend but her boyfriend over the past several weeks. As they learned to survive together, they healed together.

Together they learned what they had to do to survive in the new Wizarding Britain. They learned grey-area magic to coerce muggles to do their grocery shopping and to create even stronger wards. After the eventual arrival of Tonks and Charlie Weasley, the Order was reborn out of the few surviving members of the Order of the Phoenix. They raided Death Eater fortresses and prominent homes to search for friends taken captive during the First War and divvied up tasks on defense, offensive strategy and research. Charlie became the Head of Strategy and Tonks took charge of leading raids. Remus set to researching defensive and warding magic for their home and new . Naturally, Hermione became Head of Intelligence for the Order, spending her days researching dark magic and its powerful users — but not without the work taking its toll.

Remus was heart-broken over what the twenty-three year-old had become: lost and longing for vengeance. Her once-kind heart was calloused by a desire for justice. She had always been smart, but now had the wisdom of living through the horrors of war. He always feared there was some part of her that would get lost in the pain, but he never would have guessed she would fall for the false promises of the dark arts she researched. Yet, he held onto the hope that, somewhere deep down, there was still a shred of the tender-hearted member of the Golden Trio.

"You don't scare me, Hermione."

In his kind response, her cold façade faltered momentarily. Looking softly at her favorite professor, she opened her mouth to say something, when suddenly the floor beneath them shook. Dust from the books haphazardly piled on the shelves clouded the room and the piles of sundry knickknacks clanked.

The door burst open as the three other youth awaiting the verdict on their plan tumbled into the room. A tousled brunet with prominent eyebrows spoke:

"Lupin, we're under attack. We don't have nearly enough men —"

The tall, green-eyed girl stopped in her tracks to cough obnoxiously.

"Not the time, Daph," the boy said pointedly, punctuating each word upon continuing, " _Or women_ — to take them."

"What a time for righteous, feminist indignation," the white blond figure still leaning in the doorway coolly drawled, then turned to Lupin, "The fight will stay downstairs for now, but I reckon you have about three minutes to make a decision, Moony."

The four looked at their superior, their collective countenance conveying an insistence that their plan would be successful in ending the rule of the Dark Lord.

Remus looked down, as if to survey the truth behind the announced attack. He heard the struggle and sighed, then turned to look up at the foursome.

"I'll do it," Remus finally said.

The young adults shared a sympathetic glance among themselves, mourning Remus' decision. As much as they counted on it, they regretted witholding such a pertinent detail from him.

"It's risky magic," Remus sighed, "But I should be able to keep it open for about thirty seconds."

From there, Hermione took over, "The important thing is that you all make it through; I'll stay to defend the entrance until it's about to close so as to ensure we don't have any unwanted tagalongs. If all goes as planned, we'll wake up immediately in our younger selves. Now, someone protect the door."

Remus began to mutter a chant and move his wand in a large circle. The room surged forward with the force of the erupting wormhole. A powerful wind drew the four toward the vacuous space torn in the room.

"GO! NOW." Remus yelled, hearing footsteps rampaging up the stairs.

Unfortunately, dark magic strong enough to rupture the space-time continuum is a greedy thing. Even as Remus finished the incantation, he began screaming as the core of his power was ripped from his being to fuel the spell.

The tall one leaning in the doorframe crossed the room in a few quick paces and disappeared instantly through the portal. Behind him, the portal began to shut. Daphne knew what her role was. A flash of green light left her wand, and Remus fell as a sacrifice for the future.

Daphne and the other boy scurried through the portal. Hermione paused to look at Remus. She nodded her head in respect and disappeared into the darkness.

* * *

A/N: I'm updating this chapter by chapter before continuing on with the story! I've finally made the big move from the US to French university and have a lot more free time now (yay for extra time for fan fic!), so get ready for more updates very, very soon.

If anyone has any interest in beta-ing, let me know!

Review, review, review, please :)


	2. Chapter 2: We've Only Got Each Other Now

The whole world paused when Hermione walked down the stairwell in front of the Great Hall on the night of the Yule Ball. She had an uncommon air of confidence, her eyes shone with esoteric knowledge. She was a different girl — quite literally.

* * *

Chapter 2: We've Only Got Each Other Now

* * *

Ginerva Weasley was not, by any means, a remarkable girl, except perhaps in her ability to cast a particularly nasty bat-bogey hex. Her looks were plain and her mind was not particularly sharp, however, she had found her place in the world as a member of the new Order.

In 1997, the world was thrown into darkness. The prophecy announced by Sybill Patricia Trelawney was fulfilled as Harry Potter was slaughtered as a sacrifice to the Dark cause. Along with him, the majority of the Order of the Phoenix was massacred that day. Very few made it out of the First Battle alive, and those who did were gathered around the old Black family dining room table. Ginny called the meeting to order and led the round of weekly obituary readings while she waited for Remus to finish his meeting with Hermione. Ginny knew not of the meeting's nature, but by assessing the vacancies around the table, she assumed it had something to do with their newest members.

The youngest Weasley didn't have much left in the world, but, recently, she had _even_ less as she distanced herself from her long-time best friend, Hermione. Hermione had changed. They all had. But Ginny still imagined Hermione to be the last witch in the world to show up at the Order's doorstep with two Death Eaters in tow. Yet, about 3 months ago, that is exactly what happened. Ginny fought her on it for days and Remus was baffled, but the Order couldn't afford to lose their brightest researcher over a membership squabble. Hermione had said the once-Slytherins' reasoning was legitimate for joining the Light, and pressed us as to when the last time any of us saw Theodore Nott or Daphne Greengrass or, hell, even bloody Draco Malfoy actively act against the Light cause. With that, she won the argument, and lost her best friend. The severance became quite permanent when the girl quietly brought the aforementioned Malfoy into her little group a mere month later.

"Charles Weasley," Ginny began, "was the second born and last surviving son of Arthur and Molly Weasley."

She paused to survey the somber room, begging herself to remain stoic.

"He dedicated his life to his studies as a Dragonologist, choosing to remain away from the family and world he loved to conduct research in Romania. His leadership as the Head of Strategy is largely credited as the reason for all of our survival." She took a deep breath, trembling, "Most importantly he was lively, loving, and loy — loy —"

Dean Thomas, who sat next to her, broke away from his blank stare at the grainy mahogany tabletop to look up at the struggling girl. He reached to grab her hand and held it gently, offering as much of a smile as he could muster.

She swallowed, and with renewed courage, she said, "Most importantly, he was lively, loving, and loyal. I know Charlie will remain with us every time we step into battle. He will be greatly missed."

Upon finishing, she dropped the parchment she read off of into a small wooden jewelry box full of similarly scrawled-upon papers. She struggled with closing the clasp again, as the pile of stained parchment scraps had nearly outgrown the case.

The room grew quiet. Ginny had expected Remus to have returned from the meeting by now — he never kept people much longer than a quarter hour. But, it had been nearly forty-five minutes since Hermione had entered his room and Ginny was getting anxious.

Dean saw the expression on her face and proceeded to rush into the kitchen to put on a pot of ginger tea. While he waited for the kettle, he brought Ginny a small tin of biscuits. He worried when she got worked up, it never helped the chronic nausea and dizziness that seemed to afflict her nowadays.

The rest of the Order had dissolved into whispered conversations.

As he placed the crackers in front of her, she turned to him, placing a hand on his arm as a silent act of thanks.

"You feeling okay?" He asked, kissing her forehead. He then placed a hand on her slightly rounded stomach and whispered, "How's our boy holding up?"

Before she had a chance to answer, the foundation of the building seemed to shake as its intricate wards imploded. The front door was blasted out of its frame and, immediately, the fireplace was filled with a flash of bright green flames, twirling and twisting at the ankles of a score of black-clad intruders.

They were out-numbered.

Ginny sprung into action, like the rest of the Resistance around the table. But Dean, knowing the delicate condition of his new wife, wrapped his arm around her waist and began to guide her toward the stairwell.

"Dean!" Ginny screeched, "What are you doing? They need me!"

Dean paid her words no mind and continued to clear a path for them through the front room.

"We need to get to Remus and Hermione, and protect them from those traitors she's let in here," he sputtered.

Finally reaching the stairwell, he let go of her.

"RUN!" He bellowed, "Get Remus, I'll check the rooms for the others!"

As soon as he ordered, she sprinted up the staircase and ran to Remus' office.

Dean followed directly behind her until he reached the second bedroom down the hall — the one inhabited by Hermione and Daphne. After pushing open the door, he was shocked to a stop.

"What have you done, Hermione?" He whispered.

The walls were covered in scratch marks, penciled in notes and sketches of symbols he thought he may have recognized from Ancient Runes. On the floor he found a pentagram circumscribed by a witch's circle.

He squat to examine the occult marks upon the floor. It took him only a moment to realize the strange, brown markings were transcribed in blood.

"Oh, shit!" he impulsively screamed.

"Oh, shite's righ'," a voice growled from behind him before launching himself at the boy.

Ginny heard the commotion in Remus' office before she entered. The screaming from behind the door was otherworldly. She imagined the sound was that of one's very soul being vacuumed out. Peering through the doorframe, the young Weasley found Remus Lupin splayed across the floor, crumpled in a very un-human shape.

"REMUS!" Ginny exclaimed, running to kneel beside him. She checked for a pulse, and whispered, "Oh, Remus. What has she done to you?"

She gave herself a moment to mourn her old professor, but was caught by a voice behind her.

"Lookie here! I think we've got ourselves a Weasley — the last one, if what I've heard's true," one of her cronies tittered, "I bet you can scalp her when we're through and get a pretty penny for all that shiny red hair."

Ginerva Weasley not a remarkable witch, but she sure as hell would not go down without a fight.

Not many hours later, the only sound left to be heard in Grimmauld Place was an abandoned teakettle's yell.

* * *

Hermione woke with a start. The world around hadn't yet come into focus when she heard familiar laughter erupting out of the boy next to her.

"Blimey, Hermione!" he howled, "Did you just fall asleep? I mean, I thought the lecture was boring, but—"

"Ronald?" Hermione nearly yelled, startled by the presence of her 7-year-dead friend.

By now, half the class had stopped paying attention to Professor Bins and had shifted focus to the ruckus caused by Hermione's sudden outburst.

"Umm… Everything all right there, 'Mione?"

It had been ages since anyone had called her that.

"I've got to get out of here." She rushed to say, stumbling as pushed out of her chair. As if momentarily recognizing her faux pas, she turned back to Ron as she backed out of the room.

"Err, I'm fine." She attempted to cover, "I just— I left a book — the library. I'll find you later."

The redhead seemed to take her brash departure at face value. She was lucky it was the end of the lecture. As she ran out the door, he muttered, "That woman and her books."

Hermione ran to the Room of Requirements. Upon reaching the seventh floor, she paced in front of the wall thinking she desperately needed a place to sort out her momentary lack of sanity in History of Magic.

The door soon appeared and she found that the room understood her better than she had expected: she found a replica of the Gryffindor common room.

She walked over to her favorite corner and sat herself in the alcove of a bay window overlooking the grounds. She curled up there to consider what had just transpired.

 _Ron_. She felt at once regressed and out-of-place seeing him after all those years. His laughter sounded like the freedom of childhood. He likely didn't even know there was an impending war, let alone that he was already in his final years of life.

"It doesn't change anything, you know," a smooth, masculine voice approaching her asserted.

 _Good to know at least someone else made it_ , she thought.

He strode across the room and sat at her feet on the day bed. In an awkward display of affection, he lay a hand on her bent knee.

"We had our time with them once. Now, we ensure their future is different."

"I know, Draco. I know."

* * *

A/N: All that exposition finally out of the way. Whew! Our protagonists are in the appropriate time and now it's time for all their hidden intentions to finally come out, hehe, and for us to figure out how exactly Draco and Hermione got on good terms!


	3. Chapter 3: The Futurists

The whole world paused when Hermione walked down the stairwell in front of the Great Hall on the night of the Yule Ball. She had an uncommon air of confidence, her eyes shone with esoteric knowledge. She was a different girl — quite literally.

* * *

Chapter Three: The Futurists

* * *

 _A/N:_ Thank you all for bearing with me as I've worked on compiling the rest of the story! The group in this chapter will really start to show the dynamics, I think, but what you should know is that they are not intended to be the _most_ sympathetic bunch. This story has really started to run away from me in such a good way and has become less about Hermione's personal growth and more about the up-takings of self-importance and self-justifying youths (including our soon-to-be young lovebirds) and the beginning of social movements. I will probably be soon updating the story summary to match this. Below I included a few sentences from The Futurists' Manifesto from which this chapter gets its name and from which a lot of the future interactions of our little group of time-travelers got their inspiration. I hope you enjoy; let me know your thoughts!

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor any texts or ideas otherwise mentioned in the below text.

" _Nous avions veillé toute la nuit, mes amis et moi, sous des lampes de mosquée dont les coupoles de cuivre aussi ajourées que notre âme avaient pourtant des cœurs électriques. Et tout en piétinant notre native paresse sur d'opulents tapis persans, nous avions discuté aux frontières extrêmes de la logique et griffé le papier de démentes écritures._

...

We have been up all night, my friends and I, beneath mosque lamps whose brass cupolas are bright as our souls, because like them they were illuminated by the internal glow of electric hearts. And trampling underfoot our native sloth on opulent Persian carpets, we have been discussing right up to the limits of logic and scrawling on paper with demented writing.

Quoted from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's "Le Manifeste du Futurisme"

* * *

"Well, I suppose that was the last of my humanity." Daphne chirped nonchalantly as she dusted nonexistent dirt off her gray uniform skirt.

"Now, now, Daphne," Draco droned, "We all know you're better without it, anyway."

Theo stepped through the doorway at that moment, shooting Draco a disapproving look. He walked towards Daphne and, placing a hand on her waist, directed her towards a maroon couch opposite of Draco and Hermione. The other two separated themselves on the daybed, Hermione straightening her posture and Draco shifting to face the new arrivals.

Neither Theo nor Daphne noticed the odd coziness of the two former rivals as they were caught in intent whispers.

"We did what had to be done," he said solemnly, "and that's all."

"Don't remove my agency in this, Theo," Daphne responded, "I know what I've gotten myself into here."

"Yeah, mate," Draco interjected, "Just because you're on a crusade for the betterment of wizarding-kind doesn't mean we all are." He smirked, leaning back as he folded his hands behind his head and winked at Daphne, who rolled her eyes in response.

"Glad to find you cavalier as ever, Draco, after _killing a man_ ," Theo shot back.

"We didn't kill him," Hermione said, "In whatever time we are in now, he is still alive. As long as we are here, we didn't kill him — we are keeping him alive."

The gravitas of her comment brought the room to momentary silence.

Daphne sighed at the tension and quipped, "What's with all the red in here, anyway? You know, there _are_ more of us."

Draco chuckled and subtly waved his wand, turning the cushion he and Hermione were perched on emerald green.

"Hey!" she squealed, "Not my alcove!"

"Fine."

With another wave of his wand, Draco turned everything in the room except the alcove Slytherin green.

"Better?" He taunted.

Theo visibly loosened and joined in the laughter.

"Mate, how'd you do that? And silently, too?"

Draco smirked, "Trade secret."

"Trade?" Daphne snorted, "Whose? Madame Pudifoot's?"

He blanched.

"I can do that, too," she added, "Then again, so could anyone from the 1990 class of _Madame Pudifoot's Charm School_."

" _Charm_ school?" Hermione howled, "You mean — pinkies up, kids — _you_!"

Draco's jaw dropped, "They'd never teach such a thing!"

Over the next few hours, the room was argued over and eventually made into an amalgamation of the two houses' common rooms mixed with some idea of their fathers' studies. The final outcome was a room filled with rich, dark woods, supple, deep wine and moss- colored fabrics and, per Daphne's demand, cream furs.

They laid across the furniture, at once burning with excitement and overwhelmed by their restlessness. It had been a long-shot for this plan of theirs to work; but, now that it had, what were they to do?

"Mitsy!" Draco shouted, soon having a young elf materialize in front of him, "Go home and fetch some elven whiskey — and, for Merlin's sake, nothing from the continent or aged less than 30 years; we have reason to celebrate tonight."

Moments later, the elf arrived with whiskey in a crystal decanter with matching glasses for each of the young wizards.

"As much as I appreciate the, uh, decorum," Hermione crinkled her nose, "Haven't you heard of champagne to celebrate?"

"You say that like we haven't spent any time _en France, 'Ermeeonehh,"_ Daphne said, slipping into an over-wrought French accent.

"You're a bunch of pretentious twats," Hermione deadpanned.

Over the last several months, Hermione had spent a lot of time with this odd bunch of Slytherins. She'd often put up with their complaints over the quality of life at Grimmauld Place, but she'd never quite grasped the extent to which their childhoods were different than hers.

Eventually, Draco called back Mitsy to find Hermione something slightly less abrasive to drink.

As soon as the elf had disappeared once again, after depositing a bottle of Veuve in the room, Hermione turned, baffled, to Draco.

"Don't tell me that this is what your Hogwarts experience was like."

"Well, between the scarring home-life and the constant dangerous tasks from the madman living with my family — the usual, you know — my mum thought that sending my childhood elf to school with me might be a bit of a comfort."

"Cheers to that."

"And cheers to doing it all again."

The stories told that night were difficult for Hermione to stomach. Theo and Daphne had been engaged since they were two-months-old. _Two months!_ She knew that pureblood society was traditional but she had no idea that — _I mean, fuck! — What sort of parents would do that?_ And Draco, gods, the nonchalance with which he discussed his father. _Father._ Like he even deserved that title! Each one had different fears about being back in the past, even though none would admit to them soberly.

Daphne awoke the next morning to find Hermione bent over a table scratching away on parchment.

"Uunnnngh," Daphne moaned, "How are you _alive_?"

"I told you you should drink Champagne."

"Oh, I'm going to be sick."

"No," Hermione chided, "you're going to go figure out exactly _when_ it is we are."

"This early?" Theo mumbled, "No — breakfast."

"Well, you lovely bunch slept through it."

"Now, I'm going to collect our research materials. Theo," Hermione commanded, suddenly seeming annoyed as she turned to the barely awake boy, "Go to class."

"Brilliant. Just brilliant," Draco lauded from across the room, suddenly awake and surprisingly put-together.

"And you," she said pointedly, suddenly turning to face a deeply amused Draco, "Get a better attitude."

"As if," he responded, nestling himself further into his seat.

After the others had stepped out of the room, she turned back to Draco and merely asked, "You know what to do?"

xOxOxOxO

Perhaps out of habit or longing for comfort, Hermione found herself crashing on her old four-poster bed. After sleeping through breakfast, she knew that skipping her first class that morning would seem strange, but there were more important matters for her to handle. She made her way from the Room of Requirements that morning to her old bedroom, not stopping to bask in the familiarity and warm tones of the near-empty Gryffindor common room. She breathed in the familiar scent and smiled seeing that nothing had changed. It was melancholy feeling: realizing how different she was now, this time around.

She sighed and made her bed, leaving the things she'd been too busy to keep tidy the first time around immaculate before leaving to break into the boys' dormitories.

Once downstairs, she cast a simple spell to levitate herself up the boy's stairwell — Harry and Ron had tried to climb the stairwell the girls' dormitories behind her in their second year, and only made it a few steps up before the stairs flattened and all three of them tumbled to the bottom in a heap. She was not up for such an adventure again. Although, she still wondered how Ginny had managed to sneak up there to steal back Riddle's journal. Perhaps, it recognized the male possessing her at the time? _Anyway_ — and to Harry and Ron's dormitory.

Their room smelled like sweat. It was strewn with dirty quidditch jerseys — no wonder — and the majority of the trunks were wide open with their contents strewn about. Only Neville's remained neat, his bed sheets just barely mussed and his clothing at least crumpled inside the chest by his bunk. She _knew_ she always liked that boy.

Hermione identified Harry's area easily: there was an open copy of Flying with the Cannons near his pillow, likely the copy Ron had given him at Christmas, and large golden egg nested in a sweater in his trunk.

 _Egg!_

It was an egg from the Triwizard Tournament, which meant it had to be fourth year, likely sometime between November and January, if she remembered correctly. _So much for Daphne's task, hmph._

With this new information, Hermione hurried to dig to the bottom of Harry's trunk and pulled out a large, silky piece of fabric covered in an obnoxious pattern she could have sworn she once saw on her great aunt's rug.

"Sorry, Harry," she whispered, as if he could hear or, somehow, understand.

She shoved the cloak into her beaded bag and made her way back through the common room. When she finally reached the library, she wrapped the cloak around her shoulders and weaved through the shelves toward the very back.

The restricted section had always fascinated Hermione. It was a room of secrets she wasn't intended to know and, well, she was supposed to be a know-it- _all_. But now, being older, she didn't have the same affinity for rule-following to keep her in-check.

She searched through the section, but found no decipherable organization system. Eventually, she settled for grabbing all the titles she thought might hold information on horcruxes: _Magick Moste Evile_ , _The Book of Spells_ , myriad books of shadows and — _Damn it!_ Dumbledore had already moved the _Secrets of the Darkest Art_ from the restricted section to the headmaster's office.

Hermione left the section mostly content, although puzzled by how she would manage to get the most important of the tomes out from under the nose of her headmaster.

Lost in her thoughts, she failed to notice the curious gaze of sky-blue eyes that just saw restricted books float right off their shelves.

"Well, I haven't seen any mistletoe around," the puzzled girl stated.

xOxOxOxO

"Luna, I'm telling you books do not just fly off of shelves of their own accord!" A tall, awkwardly limbed Neville Longbottom insisted.

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," the girl mused.

"What does that even mean?"

"Newton," she shrugged, "It was the Nargles, of course."

"Right… Nargles moved the dark arts books."

The pair grew suddenly silent as they heard another pair of voices approaching.

"Go to class, my arse!" A boy grumbled.

"Feigning normalcy is the best possible answer, Theo," His female companion chided, "You know that."

The nearing couple paused in the middle of the corridor only twenty yards in front of Neville and Luna.

"Oh, yes! Because time travel is so bloody normal!"

"SHH! Would you keep it down?" she said, pushing him through the door that materialized in front of them.

Luna and Neville stood in stunned silence for a moment.

"D-d-did you see that d-d-door just appear?" Neville asked.

Luna looked from the now-blank wall back to her friend.

"You saw it, too?" she breathed, "I was afraid it was just me."


End file.
